Jun 30, 2012

For the fourth time during the Syrian crisis, the military escalation reached its peak, and the current escalation is the second in two months, as after the (US - US Arabs) maneuvers in Jordan, and (Turkey - US Arabs) Anatolia maneuvers, now a new kind of escalation began, as military units were deployed in occupied Golan, and promoting the Turkish forces on the Syrian borders, and the re-deployment of forces northern Jordan with leaked info about a Saudi-US presence, in addition to the presence of US forces in Jordan as well as in the in the Zion entity.. The question is: is the axis of (Washington, Tel Aviv, Ryad, Doha and Ankara) about to wage war against Syria? or is it just an escalation of pre Geneva meeting negotiations..?

The Assad riddle.. ?

The US .. under the pretext of saving the face of Ankara, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel's security, had agreed to keep the regime in Syria against the stepping down of president Assad, and then his return to power based on the ballot boxes.. But the Russians told them that any Syrian citizen realize that president Assad's stepping down even for 10 days will cause a long term civil war in Syria, therefore, compromising president Assad means compromising Russia's security and a refuse of any political solution.. Therefore, it is a decision for the continuation of Washington's secret and intelligence work and the refusal of dialogue.

But the US returned with a new trick with a UK escalation, that is a "Government of National Unity" that reduce the powers of the president of the Republic, and thus a new constitution, and thus Washington wants to bring in politicians like the Ghalyoun the interpreter, and the MBs to Syria with high ranks, in order to re-trench the attack on Syria for the future, and the idea of the "Government of National Unity" is not rejected by the Russians in principle, but they reject any amendment in the constitution without a public referendum, and refuse changing the powers between the president of the republic and the Prime Minister with an external intervention, knowing that president Assad fully realize the risks of the phase, when he said "Am not a person who abandon his responsibilities", and the Syrian position is the essence of the Russian position, as the Russians cannot accept what the Syrians will refuse no matter what it is, therefore, the US think it is cunning the players and trying to win the battle with various means, new tricks, and different methods, but with every raise of an idea, it collides against the latest wall that it hit, such as the downing of the Turkish war jet in the Syrian regional water with all this incident means.

An escalation for every escalation...

Syria is well aware what is the balance of power in the region, and the Russians will not give up what they have gained of public influence during this crisis, therefore, each escalation was met with another kind of escalation, and the title of the Syrian-Russian escalation is going with the military settlement on the ground without accepting the political solution. And during the course of the Syrian crisis, the Syrian position was ascending, as with each passing day, Washington loses a new card and reduce the ceiling of negotiations with Syria, and with the issuance of "Anti-Terrorism law" that can diminish the role of the armed opposition, and strengthen the role of the leadership, along with the competent authorities purification of some areas similar to what happened in Baba Amro, and before that was the downing of the Turkish war jet without any prior notice, and bringing it down below the radar signal, and the escalation is the Syrian title of "Washington refusal of engaging in a political settlement"..

The US cunning.. ?

From Washington's side, and according to informed sources, it started to resend her agents into Syria, some of those agents are specialized in bringing public protests, and the attempt to impose a "Government of National Unity" based on its measuring, we can understand the US way in withdrawing the armed gangs and commencing a US-sized political solution, therefore, Washington wants from Geneva meeting to head for a "Government of National Unity" with larger powers, and then it will start withdrawing the armed gangs and bring back the protesters who used to protest at the beginning of the crisis, but this US trick cannot pass Russia nor Syria, and those who win the battle don't have to provide such US concessions, so there was a contradiction in the US statements, as Clinton's spokesman said: "She will not attend the meeting unless the attendees agree on the stepping down of president Assad", ofcourse this high ceiling of negotiations with the Russians when she meet with Lavrov in Moscow, and from another side, she stateed that herself (Clinton) kept her meeting agenda open for attending Geneva meeting, therefore, she doesn't want to abandon the negotiations arena, and with the approach of implementing the US-EU sanctions on the Iranian oil, the world will have entered many points of no-return, and the time factor will burn the US and strengthen the Syrian position.

No war to come..

We can say that the military escalation that some countries performed under US order, which was not the first nor the last one, is an escalation of negotiations, as the title of the UNSC meetings was massacres in Syria, and the title of negotiations is a US escalation, even young people know that any war in the region, the balance of power in it is not on the side of Washington's allies as Syria, Iran, Iraq and Lebanon own many strength points and influence in the region that threaten not just Washington's interests on the longer term, yet it even threaten the survival of the EU itself, therefor, the US balloon will not be larger than the one before it, and the latest US balloon that was vented after Putin and Obama summit, was the maneuvers on the Syrian borders, and after Geneva meeting, we will witness the venting of the balloon of the military redeployment on the Syrian borders, knowing that till now Syria is not in an war alert mode, and did not declare the "general alert" yet, nor calling on the army reserves or arm the public army, so the ball remains in the field of the Americans, do they want to continue, or learn from their defeats? the US position is not important, but what's important is the beginning of a settlement on the ground to forcefully impose the solution and make Annan's mission work properly, which is the mandatory passage to the solution in Syria.

The Arab Spring is generally discussed in terms of the prospects for democracy. Equally significant is the increasing appeal — most recently in Syria — of outside intervention to bring about regime change, overturning prevalent notions of international order.

The modern concept of world order arose in 1648 from the Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years’ War. In that conflict, competing dynasties sent armies across political borders to impose their conflicting religious norms. This 17th-century version of regime change killed perhaps a third of the population of Central Europe.

To prevent a repetition of this carnage, the Treaty of Westphalia separated international from domestic politics. States, built on national and cultural units, were deemed sovereign within their borders; international politics was confined to their interaction across established boundaries. For the founders, the new concepts of national interest and balance of power amounted to a limitation, not an expansion, of the role of force; it substituted the preservation of equilibrium for the forced conversion of populations.

The Westphalian system was spread by European diplomacy around the world. Though strained by the two world wars and the advent of international communism, the sovereign nation-state survived, tenuously, as the basic unit of international order.

The Westphalian system never applied fully to the Middle East. Only three of the region’s Muslim states had a historical basis: Turkey, Egypt and Iran. The borders of the others reflected a division of the spoils of the defunct Ottoman Empire among the victors of World WarI, with minimal regard for ethnic or sectarian divisions. These borders have since been subjected to repeated challenge, often military.

The diplomacy generated by the Arab Spring replaces Westphalian principles of equilibrium with a generalized doctrine of humanitarian intervention. In this context, civil conflicts are viewed internationally through prisms of democratic or sectarian concerns. Outside powers demand that the incumbent government negotiate with its opponents for the purpose of transferring power. But because, for both sides, the issue is generally survival, these appeals usually fall on deaf ears. Where the parties are of comparable strength, some degree of outside intervention, including military force, is then invoked to break the deadlock.

This form of humanitarian intervention distinguishes itself from traditional foreign policy by eschewing appeals to national interest or balance of power — rejected as lacking a moral dimension. It justifies itself not by overcoming a strategic threat but by removing conditions deemed a violation of universal principles of governance.

If adopted as a principle of foreign policy, this form of intervention raises broader questions for U.S. strategy. Does America consider itself obliged to support every popular uprising against any non-democratic government, including those heretofore considered important in sustaining the international system? Is, for example, Saudi Arabia an ally only until public demonstrations develop on its territory? Are we prepared to concede to other states the right to intervene elsewhere on behalf of coreligionists or ethnic kin?

At the same time, traditional strategic imperatives have not disappeared. Regime change, almost by definition, generates an imperative for nation-building. Failing that, the international order itself begins to disintegrate. Blank spaces denoting lawlessness may come to dominate the map, as has already occurred in Yemen, Somalia, northern Mali, Libya and northwestern Pakistan, and may yet happen in Syria. The collapse of the state may turn its territory into a base for terrorism or arms supply against neighbors who, in the absence of any central authority, will have no means to counteract them.

In Syria, calls for humanitarian and strategic intervention merge. At the heart of the Muslim world, Syria has, under Bashar al-Assad, assisted Iran’s strategy in the Levant and Mediterranean. It supported Hamas, which rejects the Israeli state, and Hezbollah, which undermines Lebanon’s cohesion. The United States has strategic as well as humanitarian reasons to favor the fall of Assad and to encourage international diplomacy to that end. On the other hand, not every strategic interest rises to a cause for war; were it otherwise, no room would be left for diplomacy.

As military force is considered, several underlying issues must be addressed: While the United States accelerates withdrawals from military interventions in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan, how can a new military commitment in the same region be justified, particularly one likely to face similar challenges? Does the new approach — less explicitly strategic and military, and geared more toward diplomatic and moral issues — solve the dilemmas that plagued earlier efforts in Iraq or Afghanistan, which ended in withdrawal and a divided America? Or does it compound the difficulty by staking U.S. prestige and morale on domestic outcomes that America has even fewer means and less leverage to shape? Who replaces the ousted leadership, and what do we know about it? Will the outcome improve the human condition and the security situation? Or do we risk repeating the experience with the Taliban, armed by America to fight the Soviet invader but then turned into a security challenge to us?

The difference between strategic and humanitarian intervention becomes relevant. The world community defines humanitarian intervention by consensus, so difficult to achieve that it generally limits the effort. On the other hand, intervention that is unilateral or based on a coalition of the willing evokes the resistance of countries fearing the application of the policy to their territories (such as China and Russia). Hence it is more difficult to achieve domestic support for it. The doctrine of humanitarian intervention is in danger of being suspended between its maxims and the ability to implement them; unilateral intervention, by contrast, comes at the price of international and domestic support.

Military intervention, humanitarian or strategic, has two prerequisites: First, a consensus on governance after the overthrow of the status quo is critical. If the objective is confined to deposing a specific ruler, a new civil war could follow in the resulting vacuum, as armed groups contest the succession, and outside countries choose different sides. Second, the political objective must be explicit and achievable in a domestically sustainable time period. I doubt that the Syrian issue meets these tests. We cannot afford to be driven from expedient to expedient into undefined military involvement in a conflict taking on an increasingly sectarian character. In reacting to one human tragedy, we must be careful not to facilitate another. In the absence of a clearly articulated strategic concept, a world order that erodes borders and merges international and civil wars can never catch its breath. A sense of nuance is needed to give perspective to the proclamation of absolutes. This is a nonpartisan issue, and it should be treated in that manner in the national debate we are entering.